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Recently I had the unpleasant
experience of discovering that I had been plagiarized.
Through Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts), I learned
that a certain “Fantoni” had placed my essay “Sometimes
Life is a Metaphor” on www.articleitem.com under the
parenting section.
GoGoogle Web Alert
for: "Sometimes Life Is A Metaphor"
Sometimes Life is a Metaphor - articleitem
Sometimes Life is a Metaphor.
. Sometimes Life is a Metaphor. By: Fantoni. Every
spring, Chris and I order butterfly caterpillars. We
have an inexpensive, ...
There it was, word for word, not a punctuation mark, not
a syllable changed, and credited to – Fantoni.
I was enraged! How dare someone steal my work! It took
me three days, but I finally was able to take action to
bring the page with my stolen essay down!
I tried to write to the owner of the site to politely
instruct them toGo either give me credit or remove the
page, but emails to the webmaster of the website, which
was listed in WhoIs, came back as undeliverable. The
“Contact Us” on the web site threw up a 404 error, and
when leaving comments, many of my friends received
syntax errors when they tried to put my name in as the
true author.
My attempt at finding the web host was frustrating. I
could not find anything until a kind tech from a related
site, taught me the following:
Go into www.whois.sc and fill in the name of the web
site. Under Server Data, look at “IP Address.” There
should be a hosting site mentioned there. If not, click
on “trace route.” Scroll down and you should find a
hosting url. In my case, it was reliablehosting.com.
Once I had finally discovered the web hosting company, I
contacted them and they were very cooperative. Here is
what I discovered that I needed to do to remove the
page, with my essay credited to the plagiarist, from the
web site.
First, read about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
here:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html
In 2000 a copyright law was passed to protect those of
us who post our writings, pictures, etc. on the
internet. Should you find that someone has plagiarized
your property, fill out a DMCA Take Down Notice form.
You can find the form here:
http://www.dreamweaverresources.com/forms/copyright/index.htm
As you look at it, you will see that it asks you to name
the copyrighted work, provide the url where the
plagiarist has placed your writing, picture or trademark
under their name, who the copyright belongs to and other
pertinent information. It then asks for your signature
to the following:
“I hereby affirm, as the complaining party, that I
believe in good faith that the use of the material in
the manner complained of is not authorized by the
copyright holder, its agent or the law.
I hereby affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the
information contained in this notification is accurate,
and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the holder
of the exclusive right that I claim to be infringed.
Fill out the form, fax it to the web host and the
pertinent pages of the site will be taken down within 48
hours.
Watch the web site. If your material comes up again,
most companies will take the entire site down. At this
point, the ball is in the court of the plagiarist. If
he or she wishes, they can contact an attorney, and then
it is between the two of you.
I filled out the form, faxed it to Reliable Hosting and
the page was taken down within 24 hours. I felt great
satisfaction in rescuing my little essay.
If you have published on one of the writing community
sites, you may be affected.
To see if you have been plagiarized, go to:
http://www.articleitem.com/profile/Fantoni/183 |
Background Picture "Misty Lake"
©Debra
Shiveley Welch
All books are also available at
http://www.amazon.com
Original
Oil "Eternity" for Stands With Wings
logo used
with the generous permission of
Jonathan
Earl Bowser
http://www.jonathonart.com/lotu.html
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